CHANGE is the Constant in a Century of New York City Real Estate

Elliman Magazine
Jonathan Miller
October 13, 2011, 2 pages

While researching the last 100 years of New York City residential real
estate, I came to appreciate the single constant in the tumultuous ebb
and flow of housing: a market that continually adapts to significant
economic, political, and social change.

Over the past century, the city has been held together by a diverse
economy that links every economic capital across the globe, and
as the result of this collaborative character that has come to define
New York City, its housing market has proven to be a direct
reflection of the conditions of the world at large. The housing stock has
shifted from dependence on single-unit dwellings, to apartments, to
co-operatives, to condominiums. It has ranged from overcrowded
tenements to newly developed luxury high rises. The addition of new
housing or re-purposing of existing structures has resulted in a wide array of residential property that forms the texture of the New York City real estate market.

The irony of this evolving housing legacy is that, when simply
gazing upon the physical configurations of buildings, we take
comfort in a sense of permanence, which, as it turns out, is more
illusive than accurate. Leaf through “before and after” photo books
of New York, and the revolving landscape is readily apparent.
The founders of Douglas Elliman recognized the opportunity that
change brings, and therefore were able to build a company that has
remained a significant part of the history of the last 100 years of the
New York housing market.

The timeline below illustrates the evolution of value of New York
City real estate and the series of events that helped shape it…

Matrix Blog

Source: WSJ Yesterday evening Josh Barbanel at WSJ posted a milestone piece on the current building boom: Construction in New York City Goes Through The Roof: New residential permits surge as developers rush to qualify for tax break There has… Read More